They Packed a great defense

Edvins Beitiks, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Monday, January 12, 1998

LeRoy Butler kept hearing how the 49er defense was tops in the NFL, and he got tired of it.

"If you're the No. 1 defense when the season's over, that's great," said the Packers safety. "But all that No. 1 talk doesn't make any difference. It's the big game and the question is, "How are you going to perform?'

"They weren't the No. 1 defense today. We were."

Butler, who had four tackles on a defense that held the 49ers to 33 yards on 18 rushes, an average of 1.8 per carry, said, "You know what motivated us? Having people say what we couldn't do, saying we can't stop the run, the 49ers saying, "We're going to run right at them.' Sometimes you take that kind of stuff a little personally.

"We've beaten them four straight games now," said Butler. "There's no question we're better. No question."

Asked whether the gap between Green Bay and the 49ers is widening, defensive end Gabe Wilkins said, "If you put it in terms of being a team that can repeat . . . go back to the playoffs, the Super Bowl . . . in that way we are definitely separating ourselves from the 49ers."

Butler said, "The gap is widening now, between us and the rest. This is going to be the team in the NFC for a long time."

Defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur was the architect of a game plan that kept the 49ers to one rushing first down, 4.3 yards per play, minus-3 yards of offense in Green Bay territory, and 3-of-14 conversions on third-down tries, and held the 49ers to 44 net yards in the second half.

"We knew they were going to try to establish the run," said Shurmur. "We did a lot of different things - dog, blitz out of man coverage, out of zone - tried to load it up a little bit, do as many things as we could to keep them off balance."

The Packers shut the run down from the start. Garrison Hearst gained 7 yards on his first four carries. He led San Francisco with 12 yards in the first half, on eight carries. The 49ers tried Terry Kirby in the second half and he wound up with 21 yards on six carries.

"When we were stopping the run, you could see the frustration in their faces on the sideline," said Butler.

There's no mystery to stopping the run, said Wilkins.

"It's right there on film. The coaches tell you, "These are the formations they run out of.' Stop it."

At times the 49er offense was predictable, said Wilkins, who thought he would see more runs from Steve Young, who rushed only twice for 1 yard.

"We expected on third-and-short that they'd send somebody out, maybe have Young do a naked bootleg. They didn't do that," he said. "Of course, maybe that's because they didn't have too many third-and-shorts."

"You can't run on a defense with so much team speed," said Butler. "We were just shooting in there. Every time they tried running wide, they lost yardage."

Frustrated on the ground, the 49ers turned to short passes in the flat, gaining 3 yards here, 4 yards there. The short slant seems to be all the rage in the NFL nowadays, said Shurmur, "But if you tackle well, it's no better than a 4- or 5-yard run."

Shurmur singled out the pass rush of linebacker Seth Joyner and the pass defense of safety Eugene Robinson as reasons why the Packers were able to dominate the 49er offense.

Robinson intercepted a Young pass in front of Brent Jones at the Green Bay 14 in the second quarter, running it back 58 yards to set up the Packers' lone first-half touchdown - the most important defensive play of the day.

"We were in man, and I kind of had him inside," said Robinson. "I saw Steve Young looking, looking, and I said, "He's going to throw that ball, and I'm in great position.' "

The Packers' defense was aimed toward a moment like that, said Robinson - "Whether they ran slants, hitches, whatever, we were getting to hit them coming off the line. Our motto all year has been, "No free access.' "

Joyner said Shurmur's plan to keep mixing defenses worked to a T. "We'd play some 3-4, some 4-3, line up different ways. You've got to innovative, because if you get in something, sit in it and stay in it, any good offensive coordinator is going to figure it out.

"Of course, you've got to have the personnel to run it, guys smart enough and fast enough," Joyner said. "You can put in the plan, but if you don't have the people, you're just fooling yourself."

The sloppy, drooling weather was a plus, too, said Wilkins. "We told ourselves, "This is our type of game.' "

Butler agreed, saying, "When we found out it was going to rain, we licked our chops. If the weather was going to be a factor, we knew we had the edge."

Winning on the road also proved the Packers haven't slipped, said Butler - which is what people were saying when the team lost to the Colts. "It was like, "Which Green Bay team is going to show up?' " he said. "Well, the right one shows up when it has to."

Wilkins nodded. "It was tougher this year, tougher than last year," he said. "But the question was, "Can they do it again?' And we answered that question." &lt;